We are currently undergoing updates to our site and are working to improve your experience on all devices that you use throughout your day. If you should find a page or a story that is not working correctly, please click here.

Thank you for your patience,

TribLIVE.com Team

Municipal Authority of the City of McKeesport crews are repairing a sinkhole on Ravine Street between Flagler and Point streets.

It opened on Tuesday morning as a hole approximately 3 feet by 4 feet and has since expanded as workers continue to dig.

“We still have to dig and see how much of this old line broke,” municipal authority superintendent Chuck Schultz said on Wednesday. “It's going to be basically exploratory just to see how far it is.”

The problem began when an old 6-foot sewer line broke, and recent storms compounded the issue.

“The rain had a good hand in washing everything away,” Schultz said. “This is an emergency job and we're trying to get this done as soon as possible.”

More of Ravine Street may be excavated between Flagler and Point and the line examined with a television camera. There is no set completion date for the project.

A broken sewer line caused water to back up four times in the past two weeks in a home along Cypress Alley in Glassport. State and county officials toured the borough on Monday. It is on a list of communities most heavily affected by severe weather.

Allegheny County Health Department offered health and safety advice for homeowners and business owners affected by flooding.

It advises using bleach to disinfect washable surfaces and warned about problems caused by carbon monoxide and mold.

The county advised property owners to ask for references and check them out when using a contractor for cleanup and repairs. Other questions can be answered by calling 412-687-2243 (ACHD) or checking www.achd.net.

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Long Term Recovery Task Force is preparing to respond to needs of flood victims. It is a multi-county collaboration of Christian Associates of Southwestern Pennsylvania and Allegheny County Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters.

Those who incurred flood damage to their homes can call 211 or 888-553-5778. Volunteer deployment sites are being established at Central Highlands United Methodist Church in Elizabeth Township (412-751-0511), South Hills Interfaith Ministries in Bethel Park (412-854-9120) and Resurrection Lutheran Church in Oakdale (412-788-4513).

Patrick Cloonan and Michael DiVittorio are staff writers for Trib Total Media. They can be reached at 412-664-9161, Cloonan at ext. 1967 or pcloonan@tribweb.com, and DiVittorio at ext. 1965 or mdivittorio@tribweb.com.

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.